Abstract: Rectangular tunnels are gaining increasing attention in urban underground space construction due to their high cross-section utilization rate and short construction period. Current theoretical research on soil disturbance induced by shallow rectangular tunnel excavation still has limitations and deficiencies, mainly reflected in the neglect of the soil gravity effect, which leads to deviations in predicting the stress and displacement of the surrounding soil. To address this issue, the fundamental governing equations for soil stress and displacement are first established based on the complex variable theory. The boundary condition equations are solved by combining the conformal mapping for non-circular cavity and Fourier series technique. A complex variable solution for soil disturbance around a shallow rectangular tunnel considering the effect of gravity is derived. The analytical solution demonstrates good agreement with finite element results, validating the correctness of the proposed solution. A series of parameter analyses are conducted for the tunnel and soil parameters, to investigate the variation patterns of the displacement and stress fields in the soil surrounding the rectangular tunnel. The proposed analytical method can be used to evaluate the soil disturbance effect caused by tunnel excavation in the preliminary design stage.